Ms Mairie Cregan:

Ms Murphy has described what we now know all about. I used to work in mental health services and I am now an adoption social worker and a lecturer in UCC on this subject. The grieving process is traumatic. One can see fancy names in research books but does not understand it until one has experienced it and one realises that one cannot say what one is thinking for fear of being carted off. At the time when Liliana died I was working on a suicide prevention team but I was thinking that if I could have found a way out without anybody knowing, I would probably have taken it. I notice that a great deal among the women I work with. People do not understand how one can be so attached to a child that never opened his or her eyes. I have reared approximately 45 children though fostering, many of them on a long-term basis. I have two adopted children and six other birth children but the children I think most about are the ones who died. The only people who understand that are people who have gone through it themselves. That is why the baby loss awareness day is huge for us.
My second child got to 16 weeks gestation. He was a perfect little boy but his heart stopped beating for whatever reason. I was 46 at the time so that might have been a factor. He would have been delivered seven years ago today because they were going to bring me in two days early, so it is fortuitous that we are attending today’s meeting.
I hope I have made a note of all the questions as there were a lot of them. Somebody asked me about statistics. Three sets of statistics are available for 2012. The Central Statistics Office figures are not available yet but the ESRI figures have been published. The National Perinatal Epidemiology Centre figures reveal there were 71,755 births from 24 weeks gestation. Of that, there were 304 stillbirths. The total for early neonatal death, which is babies who completed a seventh day of life, was 141, and 40 babies died between seven and 28 days. That is a lot.
A question was asked about funding. All our funding comes from bereaved parents, which is a bit of a conundrum for us. Many people get their memory box and there is a great connection to one’s baby if one is involved with an organisation. After Liliana died, I just wanted to hang around the Erinville maternity hospital, which is the hospital where she was born. People could not understand why I wanted to be there but that was all I had of her. Of course one moves on from that stage in one’s grief, but that is why people are connected to Féileacáin. They want to do something to thank the organisation for the gift, which came from other bereaved parents, but also to feel connected with their baby. When they want to do fund-raising, we ask them if it is too soon. We say they should not put pressure on themselves and that their job is to look after themselves. Many of them tell us they find it a very healing process.
We have one staff member, Ms Jacinta Murphy, and a part-time psychotherapist. I do the social work service one day a week pro bono, and I have two social workers working with me who give of their time free. We have an office that costs us €20,000 a year. The office organises everything; all the support people need to carry out fund-raising and that also includes postage costs and the transport of the memory boxes as well as the cuddle cots, which I will speak about in a moment. We also organise craft days for items made by bereaved parents. They usually put their baby’s name on a plate as well. We also have classes on how to make the crochet and knitted goods for hospitals. I got my second baby back in a Petri dish, whereas now mothers get their baby back in a beautiful garment that has been made by a bereaved parent. All of that is provided for €20,000.
Our memory boxes cost us €40,000 a year. They are €40 each by the time we put everything in them, including Vaseline.

We do the training for free. We come in at approximately €80,000 per year, which we raise ourselves.

Deputy McLellan asked me about the Killeen project. We are getting the local and oral history groups involved as well as Macra na Feirme, Teagasc, the Irish Countrywomen’s Association, ICA, and others. We are trying to get people in involved in the project and there is great interest in it. Everybody knows somebody affected. The Deputy mentioned a baby being "secretly" buried. We would say "furtively" buried. It was as if there was shame and stigma.

Somebody asked about the work we do with the long-ago bereaved. It is significant. They come to us through other people or are referred by professionals they might be seeing through mental health services or community primary care services. Usually, we just chat. Sometimes we help them name their babies. A person might have had a baby in his or her head for years but never named the child. We give them a candle with the baby’s name on it and it takes pride of place in their houses. The candles are hand made by one of our members. The cuddle cot is a device that looks like an ordinary Moses basket but has a cool and very flat sheet that goes under the baby’s blanket and will keep the baby’s core temperature at a level such that the baby can remain with the family for a few days and even up to a couple of weeks, for example if a family member is coming home from Australia.

We are very rarely consulted by outside people who do not know us. Many of the HSE leads come to us because I have been working with Tusla and the HSE and I never shut up about Féileacáin. Officially, we are consulted only now and then. We were not consulted over the Portlaoise report or mentioned in the support section, which is a very significant deficit because we are the biggest stillbirth support organisation in the country. We have not been involved in the register, but we hope to rectify this now that we know about it. Our latest support is for the siblings. Our little teddy bears have a T-shirt printed with, “for my big brother” or “for my big sister”. This is to help the older children in a family to understand what has happened with their little brother or sister. Many families ask advice on how to tell the other children the baby has died. People are expecting a baby and, as they are told, get an angel instead. We will not go into that.